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'Aggressive' Rahul Gandhi takes on Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav

SITAPUR: "Has Mayawati ever drunk water from a well in the past five years," asks Rahul Gandhi, rolling up his sleeves, the trademark style he has acquired before addressing a gathering. "No," roars the crowd in Sitapur, a town in central Uttar Pradesh, about 95 km north of Lucknow.


"Is it not your right to get jobs in your own state," he asks and pauses for the crowd to answer. "Why do you need to migrate to other states for a livelihood," he asks again, sounding very much like a seasoned politician.


Rahul, the tireless campaigner, has been a familiar sight these past four years. The Congress general secretary has hopped onto general compartments of trains, spent nights in huts and eaten with villagers, especially Dalits. But Rahul, the public speaker, has largely been in hiding. The Congress leader has been at best a hesitant speaker.


That is changing. Rahul's new style of speech is as measured as it is aggressive. The crowds respond eagerly to his every question. The barbs are effective. They work up the crowd - if they are not roaring approval, they nod in agreement.


The approaching UP polls would shed a light on whether the Rahul factor has worked. The Congress scion has proved his mettle earlier. Thanks to his hectic campaigning in the 2009 elections, Congress managed to bag 22 seats in UP. The party's vote share rose to 18.3% in 2009 from sub-9% levels earlier.


This time, too, the entire Congress campaign is riding on Rahul. Congressmen are hopeful of a repeat in the state poll. The whispers of Rahul's ascent to the prime minister's post grow louder by the day. In that context, the UP election is billed as a litmus test for the Congress leader.


It also turns the spotlight on his caliber as a politician strategist. Rahul needs no telling. The present election tour is his third in the past one month. In the run-up to the polls, Rahul has stepped up attacks on Mayawati over corruption.


Congress workers have filed hundreds of RTIs to highlight corruption in a national rural health scheme that led to the killing of three government doctors in Lucknow.


On Sunday, Mayawati removed four ministers who were embroiled in corruption cases. Referring to the development, Rahul, addressing a gathering at Hargaon, says: "But they (sacked ministers) were left untouched for the last five years. They ate up all your money for five years and now she wants to come out clean by removing them at the last minute."


Mayawati is a frequent target of Congress because the party is hoping to corner the anti-incumbency vote against BSP. But it is the SP vote-bank that Congress is actually eyeing. Rahul is sparing no effort in taking on SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.


Mulayam, he says, has lost touch with people. He has been aggressively wooing the Muslim vote-bank, which for the last two decades had swung Mulayam's way. The minorities still blame Congress for the Babri Masjid demolition.


But in the 2009 LS polls, Mulayam allied with Kalyan Singh. The move antagonised Muslim voters and Congress made the most of it. Rahul now wants to build on the momentum.

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